As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, a neighborhood on the East side of Athens surpassed their goal of raising 500 pounds of food.
Longtime Athens resident Leara Rhodes started the Waverly Woods neighborhood food drive during the pandemic. Rhodes decided to set a new goal for their fifth year. “I decided we’d have a goal of five hundred pounds!,” she said.
The neighborhood surpassed the goal by over 100 pounds by coordinating through a Listserv and dropping goods off at Rhodes’ front porch. She added, “Together, the food we collected and the money donated, we can supply seven thousand meals.”
She says she hopes the success of the Waverly Woods food drive will inspire other neighborhoods to coordinate their own donations, “There’s a lot of people that would give if neighborhoods made it easier.”
The donations will go to the Athens Area Emergency Food Bank.
